The guy I bought it from claimed he bought it from the service manager at a local mercedes dealership. He said the car had belonged to the man's son. I noticed that most of the consumable parts on the car such as hoses, batery, belts etc. were genuine Mercedes parts with the Mercedes emblem. So his story sounds plausible, and I don't think they would be dealing in or having anything to do with stolen motors. It seems strange though that anyone would grind off the engine # being as it is necessary to insure you are buying the right replacement parts. I noticed that some of the parts available through Fastlane requires the engine # to insure the correct parts are ordered.

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Sedecrem

82 300SD 290k(needs engine swap)
79 240D 354k with new heart transplant w/220k
82 240D w/auto tranny soon to be manual 4 speed